Warwickshire expect improvements carried out to the Edgbaston outfield this winter to keep bad weather delays to play to an absolute minimum next season and beyond.

Since the end of last season, Bears groundsman Gary Barwell and his team have sought to improve drainage of the Edgbaston outfield.

Barwell, whose pitches at the stadium last season were recently commended at the ECB Groundsman of the Year Awards, is confident that the work will aid drainage of the field.

That will be welcomed by the many spectators who were frustrated by rain last season as Edgbaston suffered more than most grounds from the wettest summer on record. But there is, of course, only so much the Bears can do.

The biggest factor in how much play is lost remains one which no-one can do anything about – the increasingly volatile summer weather.

Opinions are divided about whether the British climate is already being affected by global warming but one certainly has to think back quite a way to find a dry cricket season.

It is not just spectators but also the finance department of the deep-in-debt Bears who will be hoping for significantly less disruption to play in 2013, when Edgbaston part-hosts the ICC Champions Trophy, than 2012 when the Test match was among many occasions ruined or completely washed out.

“We expect the water to drain away more quickly following the work we have done,” said Barwell.

“But of course we are all hoping that the summer of 2012 was a freak one and that we won’t see the cricket schedule disrupted as badly in 2013.

“The major work was done on the square and outfield soon after the season finished so wasn’t really been affected too much by the recent weather. The end-of-season work we undertook is part of the recommended maintenance programme.

“The outfield was verti-drained, which is a machinery procedure that creates holes deep into the ground to vertically drain water away.

‘‘The outfield is cut to 25mm all winter then will be oversewn with seed in late February.”

Meanwhile, the pitches produced by Barwell during his first season after succeeding Steve Rouse as groundsman have drawn praise.

The Bears received an ECB commendation after, during the course of last season, the umpires marked the pitches for the Test match and England Lions games at Edgbaston and every championship game there as either good or very good.